Your Uncle Goose is going into Show Business!

On September 30, 2021: your Uncle Goose will premiere a new block set at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. You’ll be able to see our latest set, “Lights, Camera, Action!” at museum gift shop.

About a year or so ago, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures approached your Uncle Goose. They wanted to know if we could create an educational block set on Genre Film.

We love films: so of course we felt intrigued! Then, we dug into research and history to create the most content-intensive educational toy we’ve ever created.

This 28 piece set required copious amounts of research. And by research, we did way more than lounge on the couch and watch film genres for a year. We also ate a lot of popcorn.

But we also went to the library and dug into genre research, character archetypes, film history, font types, and iconography. We discussed films as we went way deep with design.

We became really happy with what we created. Reading about film is one thing. Experiencing it is another.

And talking about films? That brought us another level of social pleasure we thoroughly enjoyed.

Genres aren’t static. They change over time. So having blocks we can easily move around helps us readily visualize film concepts and conventions.

We might get into a discussion, for example, on what genre a movie like Back to the Future is. Is it Sci-Fi? Is it Comedy? Is it Action? Is it Adventure? Drama? Historical? Speculative? How many genre blocks could we sort and stack to describe the film? What character archetypes could we find?

Or let’s say we want to talk about a film we’d like to see that doesn’t exist. For example, is there a Sci-Fi Urban Philosophical Epic that we need to watch?

Hard to say. But if there were, at least one of us would want to watch it. And we can take our blocks and build a concept model for it.

It wasn’t hard for us to envision film enthusiasts using our blocks to play guessing games or enjoy richer discussions about film. After all, that’s what we were doing as we were playing with our own blocks!

We also imagine budding filmmakers and film students using the blocks to create high concept studio pitches. Or even using the block set as visual aids for presentations, conversations, and film discussions.

And when we’re not playing with our blocks, we enjoy displaying them. One of us displays the set with all the character archetypes facing out. Another likes putting the icon sides face out to have guests guess the movie they’re from.

Of course, children will be happy to use them as building blocks. Like all Uncle Goose blocks, they're 100% made in the USA from sustainable Midwest basswood, and painted with child-safe inks. 

You can probably tell we had a lot of fun creating these blocks. And we still enjoy playing with them. We hope you do, too.

Look for “Lights, Camera, Action!” to hit the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on its grand opening at Wilshire and Fairfax in LA on September 30. Go behind the scenes to find out more about your favorite films!